This Old RV Is Becoming an Adventure Rig - Here’s Our Upgrade Plans.

Okay, let's talk about our plans for this RV. We've posted a lot of content about our trip from last year, which was our first year in the RV, doing a lot of other stuff, spending our winter in Key West, but I think time has come that we got to start making plans for this year. So let's talk about it. So to catch you guys up on a bit of background on this RV, we bought this in October of 2023 and we came across on this deal and this RV, in our opinion, needed a lot of work inside. It was not cute at all. It was like, it was like halfway renovated. So someone had tried to kind of make it a little bit more modern, but it, it wasn't done a very good job. We put a lot of love into making the inside, I would say up to our standards. Of course we did solar last year and so we definitely put a lot of love and labor into this thing. Probably, probably a good two months of work plus, plus another few months of like weekend work I would say. We were really happy with where we got it, but we were so excited to just hit the road, start the damn thing, full-time like RV living, being on the road. So I think that there was definitely some things on our end that were rushed. Like we could have done a better job in some aspects of the renovation and to an extent maybe we cut some corners here and there on some things that were overlooked. And I would say as we get into this year of starting new RV travel, we're going back to all the things maybe that we should have done the first time, or we wish we did a better job on. Now, we had an awesome trip going around all the country in this thing, but it definitely had its number of concerns. I would say like the biggest overarching concern that we had was the age of the RV. I feel like this whole thing for us was like a big proof of concept to see like, this sounds really cool. We can make it look pretty, but like, is it actually going to be functional? Is it actually going to take us to all these places? Yes, it did. But it did have like a fair, a fair amount of challenges that kind of led us down the path of like, okay, this has really proved the concept that we, we enjoy RV living and we can do this working remote full-time in it. Should we consider buying something new? Yeah. Because I feel like every time something broke in the RV, we both were kind of like the things over 20 years old. Like, it was just like, man, like, is it, is this it, is it going to just pass out one day? We didn't want to like keep trying to fix stuff when they break. I feel like we enjoy working on things like preemptively, but yeah, it's when you're not expecting things to break. They're going to in an RV, but yeah, there was, there was points where I feel like the frustration started to build. Yeah. So really it was kind of like a bit of a looming fear, but I will say like, for example, when we're in Glacier and like the RV just wouldn't go above 35, we're just like, this thing's toast. Like it's totaled. We're going to have to get a new RV. And then like we took it in and it was like 200 bucks to fix it. And it was just like, oh, like this thing's running better than ever before. It's great. It's an awesome RV. So it's like a lot of ups and downs, but in some of those downs, like Brenda was saying, we absolutely considered getting a new RV because we knew that we liked the RV lifestyle. And if we like it so much, maybe we should get something that possibly doesn't give us as much of a headache time to time or alleviates the fear of the age of breaking down. Like every appliance in this thing is 20 plus years old, you know? So like they're going to have to be replaced at a point. Stuff's lasted pretty well. We don't know how heavily the RV was used before us, but yeah, a lot of it is still original. Yeah. And then especially with all like the innovation and the RV industry, like the interiors now look in a lot, especially like Brinkley's looks so nice inside. And even when we were looking at new RVs, it kind of brought about like, is a C-class the best fit for us? So we definitely went through. Right. We went through on the whole range of the spectrum. It was a lot of, what is it, Matt's RV reviews. I feel like we were really happy with the size. Like we did like, you know, being able to get around in a motorhome without having to hitch up to a trailer and stuff like that. So if we were going to get a new one, we were looking at motorhomes of this size or even smaller, but then it's just the price point that comes into consideration where if you're going to buy new, those really start around 80 grand for an RV that someone would argue is not very high quality. So in order to get high quality, you're talking maybe twice that. We kind of wafered a bit on that one, went to some RV shows and dealers and checked a lot out. But I think ultimately we decided that we're going to roll with this thing. Yeah. Because I mean, financially wise, we probably have around $10,000 into this unit. And like Brendan was saying, like on the cheapest of cheap end, you could probably buy an RV for like 80,000 new. And we have like real wood cabinets, which you don't get until you start spending like $150,000 to $200,000 plus on an RV. I know. I feel like an old person was like, they don't make them like they used to. But seriously, the RV industry has cut a lot of corners in recent years from what we've seen. These older units in like the early to mid 2000s were actually pretty high quality. Yeah. So on the topic of us keeping it, it doesn't necessarily mean we're keeping this thing forever. I would say we're keeping it for the next year. I think like over the totality of our trip, like sure, we had some frustrations with things, but in general, like it didn't give us as many problems, I think, as I thought. There was a few things that were scary, like the engine issues and stuff like that, but it turned out not to be that bad. I feel like all the videos and stuff we watched kind of prepped us for like expect everything to break. I feel like we had those expectations and like not everything broke. So we did actually post a video on everything that did break on this, if you're curious, but it wasn't too bad in the whole scheme of things. So after all that background knowledge, we kind of decided if we want to keep this thing, we want to make it a lot better fit for our lifestyle. So all those pain points that we were having, we wanted to make sure that we address those before hitting the road again and doing another trip. So the next part of this video is going to break down into a group of all the smaller improvements that you were doing, and then we're going to go over the bigger improvements. Which are pretty big. Some are pretty daunting, I don't know how we feel about them yet, but we're going to try to tackle them one by one. Okay, of the smaller improvements, one of, I would say the smallest thing on this list was just patching some holes. When we renovated the RV, one of the last things we did was we took out our window shades and we replaced them with like new window covers that were going to be a little bit better insulating. And we took those out, we left a bunch of screw holes in the wall, and we were so excited to leave that we were like, we're not even going to patch these yet. So we've been living with that for a while, finally we're going to get around to fixing those holes. And while we're at it, we also plan to make better window covers for ourselves too. So this is something that we've already, we're kind of in the middle of the project on. We're going to get real foam insulation for our windows above the cab, because we don't use the windows at all, and really insulation is pretty important when you're talking about an RV. Especially in the area that you sleep, because that's where our bed is, and that will be the hottest part of the RV because of the lack of insulation and airflow. So making sure that we're comfy while sleeping, super important in my opinion. So a couple other improvements that we plan on making is, one is all around of our ground clearance. So I do know, so our RV is 27 feet long, and I do know that we have a shorter-ish wheelbase than a lot of RVs in that size, which means that behind our back wheel, it hangs off pretty far, affecting your ground clearance. So especially since we carry a motorcycle on the back, there were definitely times boondocking and stuff going off, going like on trails, we would bottom out some. But I would say more concerning than that is just like in like a Walmart parking lot or like getting out of like a Walmart or some kind of store onto the main road, there's sometimes like a little lip. So the lowest point on our RV actually seemed like our exhaust pipe. So we've actually fixed this already. I think we've raised it by about two inches, just using like some metal hose clamps to pull it up a bit. And then we're also gonna improve our motorcycle rack. So we got a hitch riser to rise it, I think, four inches. So that's gonna give us a lot better clearance going down the road, I think make it overall more enjoyable to drive. And then the last thing for smaller improvements that we're doing, this one's definitely utility focus is just our sewer or black hose storage. In a lot of RVs, the bumper will have a section that you could just put your own hose in, which is super nice. And we do not have that luxury. However, thankfully on Amazon, you can purchase essentially a super long PVC pipe with a little screw off cap that fits in there just fine. So we tackled this project. We went ahead and used hose clamps, put it on top of our bumper, which currently it's not the most aesthetic thing to look at, but I'm thinking our motorcycle rack is gonna be blocking it anyway with their bike on top. So it's gonna be super nice to have a dedicated place to store our black hose instead of putting it in some of our storage cabinets, of course, outside. It basically takes up like an entire storage cabinet behind us. When you only have so much exterior storage, let's find a dedicated place for that. And it's, I like that it's dedicated so all the ick can be in one place. Not a bad bonus. The sun is starting to peek out and we're starting to squint, so we'll be right back. We didn't record fast enough! Ooh, much better. You know what? As a lifetime Floridian, grew up always wearing sunglasses, and Michigan boy over here, his eyes are just so well adjusted that he doesn't need these things, so. Okay, now we're gonna get into the more fun part of the video. The big renovations. The big stuff that we plan to do to this thing. And I think this is gonna be like the transformative section. This is gonna be quite a bit of work to do. So yeah, let's get into it, because we're pretty excited. So first on the list is what I would say, kind of one of the smaller projects, and definitely... The smaller big projects. And it's definitely in the aesthetic category, mostly, but I will call this our front end facelift. So this RV, it's 2002, and she surely looks like it. So the front end of this thing just, I mean, it all just kind of looks old, especially the headlights are just so yellowy and cloudy. We tried to fix them. Yes, we've tried a headlight restoration kit, and I was like, oh my god, it looks so much better. And then I looked at the other headlight and I was like, what? I'm just telling myself that it works. So yeah, what entails in the front end facelift is that we're gonna paint our bumper, because it's so gray and faded, it just really does not look very good. We plan on getting new headlights that we're gonna install, because the current ones are so faded and old. And I think with the new headlights, we're definitely gonna get better visibility at night. We tried not to drive at night to begin with, but sometimes you have to, and most definitely would appreciate way better headlights. And then also, we think we're gonna get a new grill, which stay tuned for the video of what that grill looks like, because we think it's gonna look pretty darn cool. Small chance it looks dumb. I know, small chance it also doesn't fit. We'll see, because I think it said it was for 2003 plus, which looked the same as a 2002. So fingers crossed that it fits. But this is kind of what spurred this whole project idea, because we saw someone else with a grill similar to this, and we're like, that would look pretty sick on our RV. Second in our list of big projects that I would say also falls in the aesthetic category is going to be redoing our RV decals. So we've actually already started this project. It is just... We'll give you a little sneak peek behind us here. So the decals on the side of our RV, like a lot of all RVs, are super faded and old-looking. Luckily, they weren't cracking super bad. It was mostly just discoloration happening. Last year, we spent a lot of time focusing on the inside of the RV. This year, let's make sure that we're driving around something that we're proud of and that we think looks pretty cool. This has definitely been driven by me. I remember last... She's been talking about it for a while. Yes. When we got the RV, it was one of the first things I wanted to do, but I knew it was so not important in the list of things that needed to get done. When we were on the road, I was like, I will do this. And Brendan's like, it's not the time. I forget where you wanted to do it. We were in Oxford, Ohio. You are crazy. I was like, dude, please. I just so want to do it. So it just kind of falls in the scope of you want to be proud of your home. You want to be proud to show it off to your friends. And I feel that for me, I like to keep things nice and the decals always bothered me. We are making a dedicated video on this, so it's a big project, which is why we've already started some and we haven't finished yet. It's not a small thing, but we think it's pretty transformative. Okay. And the last thing on our list, which I would say is the biggest. So previously for this last year, we have had, we started off with a thousand watts of flexible solar panels on our roof. We've made several videos about the panels. They treated us really well for the most part, but the only issue that we had with the flexible panels was durability. We knew that we wanted to upgrade our panels at some point. We just kind of decided that that point is now and we're moving to a rigid panel setup. We're going to take off all the flexible panels on our roof and we're going to mount a rigid setup. You'll have to stay tuned to see which ones we go with and how big of a setup we're going with. But kind of a part of this equation is if we're going to do new solar panels, we want to go with a rigid setup that we really want to make sure that again, we're starting with a really strong foundation on the roof. So when we went up there to check out kind of the state of how everything's at, we're like, Hey, if we're going to, you know, do a little bit more of a permanent install, putting rigid panels up there that are going to weigh more, a little bit more serious, I would say of a setup. We want to make sure that everything's good underneath. So this was actually inspired by a video by Wild RV Life, right? That they just recently bought a C-Class RV and did a whole roof repair on their own, taking off the skin, you know, redoing some of the plywood underneath. We didn't even really realize this was a project that you could take on yourself, but kind of seeing other people's similar set of skills, I would say to us that we were like, Hey, this actually might be the perfect time to do this. If we want to get new panels that we should redo the roof. Right. One second, I'm starting to squint too. Even when we first decided that we wanted to do solar, when we got this RV, one of the reasons that we went with flexible panels was because how lightweight they were, because we were kind of worried about the integrity of the roof. It's our first time doing all this, so we wanted a really lightweight system. No doubt there's some soft spots up there that totally should be addressed. But yeah, I think you said it well, that we just kind of didn't realize this was something that people actually DIY. And we're all about YouTubeversity, so we're just like, we can figure this thing out. We looked at roof kits, which kind of come with the membrane and all the adhesive you need to make it happen, and we're like, let's just buy this now. I think it was going to take like a month to get here. And you know, that sort of opens the floodgates. Once it gets here, we'll take it off and see what we're dealing with, because we don't even know how bad it is, but we know it's probably going to be a pretty big project. It's exciting though, because I'm just thinking of like redoing the roof, like we'll probably be able to put better insulation in the roof, so like the RV will stay a more comfortable temperature inside. I know, we're big insulation people. Yes, when you live in Florida. But so yeah, just like improving everything that's up there and maybe improving like instead of like Luan, maybe using something that's like a bit more thick. And then also we're going to have to rip off everything on the roof that includes our fans, our skylights, our AC. So we're going to be optimizing the entire process. So we're replacing that all with better materials. So this thing's still 2002, but we're doing a lot to it that's really bringing it up to modern day. It's going to look like a beauty after this. At least on the roof from a drone shot, it should look pretty good. So yeah, I mean, those are our upcoming projects. And I would say this time around, it is really exciting because we have more time that we can be more detailed and skilled in these projects versus a year ago. We also have more skills probably. Yeah, we've learned so much versus a year ago, like everything was brand new for the first time and just wanting to rush and get on the road to where now I think we're able to like do really quality work. Yeah, we do. We do really like traveling and seeing all these cool places in the RV. But like a big part of this for us is the projects, too. You know, we want to travel in this thing for sure. And that was what we were most excited for to begin with. But also these projects are pretty fun. It makes the travel so much more rewarding when you put all this work into something that allows you to just experience the world. With that being said, I think the last part of the video is talking about where we want to go in this thing. So we're doing projects, we're redoing all this. So, you know, what are we actually going to do with it? Where are we going to go and what do we want to see? And we're still kind of figuring that out. So we we definitely know that we want to go up to Michigan. I have family there. We want to we want to go up to Michigan at some point in the summer. I also think we want to make it around to the Toronto area to potentially see a friend up there. But aside from that, we're kind of figuring out if we want to explore more of the Midwest, kind of the Great Lakes state, or maybe we're going to go out east and see some of the East Coast states. Yeah, no. I think you said it well, like we're thinking of kind of doing like a Great Lakes in Canada summer. We're not sure how long we're not sure where we want to go yet. If you guys have any ideas or recommendations for sure, let us know because we're we're still at the point where we're pretty flexible. That's exactly what I wanted to ask. Yes, absolutely. Any recommendations, guys, please leave those down in the comments down below. You guys have given us so many good tips as we've been on this journey of whether it's Oh, well, hello, whether it's places to go, how to optimize storage. So we absolutely appreciate all of your support and filling us in on what you guys think is best. So keep the tips coming. Yeah, that's going to do it for this video. Thank you guys for staying tuned. And yeah, we wanted to kind of give an intro of some stuff that's going to be coming. So all these cool projects we're really excited about. And then we're going to potentially leave the road here in a few months. All right, guys, we'll catch you next week. Got a new bag.